


Between the Wall and the Ground

by sangi



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-26
Updated: 2007-07-26
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3386639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangi/pseuds/sangi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since his mother’s death he has become acutely aware of her faults. It isn’t as if Zuko can help it, it’s just like it’s compulsory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Wall and the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2007, posted again here for archival reasons.

Through the smoky haze of almost-disaster he can see Azula, a tyrant among her servants, watching as they falter and die from inhaling too much smoke. He can almost see what she’s thinking, an effect from years of listening to her voiced thoughts and opinions. It would go something like ‘These earthbenders are so weak, to fall from smoke’ or ‘Us firebenders are trained in the art of inhaling smoke’, which was even less pleasant than it sounded.

Zuko wonders if his sister knew that it was him who betrayed her, but then he laughs to himself, on the inside, because Azula always knows these kinds of things. She knows where the best hiding places are, and that her mother thought she was a monster, because she was, and why Zuko wasn’t a favorite. It was almost sad, the way she purposely watched him crumble under the burden of being the only son, the first son, but having the second child, a _girl,_ honestly not fit to rule on a throne without male guidance, take his place in the ranking and in their father’s heart.

He knows that thinking about his childhood hurts and in the back of his mind there’s a voice that sounds hauntingly like his uncle that’s telling him this is taboo and it will unleash something that should be kept tethered to the pole of his inner mind, but he can’t stop the burning need he feels inside of him. Ever since his mother’s death he has become acutely aware of her faults. It isn’t as if Zuko can help it, it’s just like it’s compulsory.

The blemish that she had – a scar, she said, from birth, but he knew it was from something else, on her neck, almost an inch above her collar and you wouldn’t notice unless you had spent countless times crying into those shoulders and your eyes would look to her face and all of a sudden it was there, right there, in front of your eyes and you would know, just trust him, you would know that it’s not a scar from birth and its much more recent. And when you ask, she would laugh it off and assure you that it was a birthmark or from when she was young, Zuko can’t remember exactly, but her eyes were always a little pained, no matter if this was the first time you asked or the twentieth.

There was the fact that she couldn’t cook. She really didn’t have to but it seems almost strange to hear of a woman in a very sexist, very anti-feminist land of a woman who cannot cook. It was a flaw that Zuko could see written on her face whenever they ate and lifted the silver spoon to her lips and she hesitated, just a moment, not really noticeable at all, but he knew. And he would look away and his sister’s eyes would meet his, and he also knew that his sister couldn’t cook either and that was her flaw, her secret, her hidden shame. When either of the two females was asked, they would reply that the Academy didn’t teach things that they had no need to learn.

And the other flaw that stood out, among the many minor ones that plagued his restless consciousness, was that she couldn’t bear children after Azula. As even a child in her mother’s womb, Azula was still a disaster, and ruined their mother forever. He could see his father’s face, pensive, quiet in anger, as the healer relayed the news (he was just a child, just a child) and how his father had summoned him into the room and gave him a look, as if, you are our only chance, our only hope at an heir.

But he never really was. He was a failure compared to his sister, who could master arts he didn’t dream of dreaming of touching until he mastered a bit more than the basics and then some, but he never got as far as his sister. Even though they were not many years apart, she had always been better, more rational and more planned-out and tricky and conniving and more like their father than they had ever hoped for. They were like two sides of the same blade ( _their father_ ).

Azula was the Fire Lord part of the man, the part where he was so patient and cruel in an unemotional kind of way, where when he was disappointed he wouldn’t say anything but the object of his disappointment would know and feel worse than they thought you could possibly feel, and then they never made the mistake again, and he knew this because it had happened countless times.

In the same way, Azula is different. She was more outspoken, a different kind of power, a different kind of owning the people she knew and thought of possessing. They would know if she was disappointed because she would tell them, and they would know, oh Agni would they know what they had done wrong and if they ever did it again she wouldn’t let them have the chance to do it again, and their deaths were just another notch on the story stick.

Zuko was, is, the other side of their father, the real side. The man side, the side that used to possess mercy and the side that maybe would have spared Zuko if he hadn’t been the Fire Lord and Zuko hadn’t been his only son ( _but Azula was better, always better_ ). He was the side that had barely any patience and that wanted so desperately to rise above the shadow of his sister and become more than a banished prince. It was this side of him that noticed the waterbender was far too pretty to be a peasant and that noticed that just maybe, just maybe, forgiveness was underrated.

But here, on the battlefield, where his sister was thinking that the earthbenders were weak and worthless, he promised himself he would never become his father and that he would have to beat his sister. She was still here, smirking in that horrible way of hers with the two sullen girls beside her, with Mai’s impassive face and Ty Lee’s regretful one. He wonders why they follow his sister so blindly but inside he slaps himself for wondering when he had done the same thing so many times before.

Azula was a tyrant. And so Zuko marched forward, breaking battle plans, knowing that more than one person called out his name in surprise but Azula just watched, body relaxed, flicking her hands to let the two cronies fall back and they disappeared into the smoke, and she stood there, on the higher ground. He was in front of her, his feet in front of hers, and her dancing eyes watching passively as everything in his eyes became as silent as the night.

_Slice._

As though cutting through water, the blade was at her throat and a thin line of blood was running down her graceful, perfect neck and her fingers were there, but she wasn’t surprised or happy or sad, she just seemed alive and he could see the pulse beat slowly, calmly in her neck. On her forefinger and thumb were traces of her blood and she rubs them together as she talks to him, eyes golden and cold and so unfeeling it hurt.

“Would you, Zuko, kill your only sister?”

And he couldn’t. He wasn’t his father.

And the sword, broken, in pieces, fell to his side and war was so damn loud and she was gone, but her triumphant smile remained.

* * *

After the battle, his uncle was still not in their custody and now he wasn’t on the inside anymore and he was with the Avatar and company. He wants to know if this is his fault but he would never admit, never ask aloud but she knows, that damn girl knows and she says clearly and loudly, not just to him, that Iroh wasn’t held there and it was a well-planned trap. Her eyes meet his lightly, just for a moment, but Zuko can feel that familiar buzz.

She then announces that Zuko’s father, the Fire Lord himself, had put out teams to hunt him down and assassinate him, no patience left to wait for his daughter to eliminate his only other child. He suddenly feels the real loss of something he thought he could carry with them, inside, maybe. Something he fought for and something that he would once betray the world and bring the Avatar to his father for.

And when the meeting is over she is waiting, outside the door, and her blue eyes are directed at the ground but he can still see the bags under her eyes and the guilt on her face because its all her fault that some of the friends they had made over time had died in their plan, but Azula had known, because she knows everything. The waterbender, Katara, asks him first if he is all right and then she tells him she has a plan and he’s nodding his head.

She tells him, meet me in the courtyard three days from now. Zuko wants to know what she will be doing in that time, but he doesn’t ask, and the information isn’t offered. He walks away slowly, before looking back to the open doors of the conference room, and sees her, on the wooden wall with the hanging lanterns above her head at evenly spaced intervals and her eyes are facing down, her long brown hair is up in a more intricate bun than he has seen on her before, and her dress is different – a green outfit she must have either borrowed or got from someone to wear.

Tanned fingers, clenched against the soft fabric of her dress, the fingernails cut neatly and no dirt under them, she was so clean looking today, and he idly and yet fervently wanted to know whom she was dressed up for. Katara hadn’t yet noticed Zuko’s presence, and he took this chance to walk away.

“Hm,” he says quietly, as he’s walking away, leaving her head leaning against the wood and her feet firmly on the floor, right between the wall and the ground.

* * *

Three days later and the fire prince is sitting alone in the courtyard, waiting, for a waterbender to arrive and tell him her cleverly devised plan. It’s that time of year when its not still winter but its not yet spring and the birds are starting to come out, and the trees are showing small buds. It’s chilly outside, but not cold, and the air is fresh, so fresh that it hurts Zuko’s lungs and it’s just so pure and unbelievably good.

The bench is made of stone and it’s hard and it’s just uncomfortable enough to make him shift to find a more comfy position. He could faintly see where a bird left its droppings on it and he takes care not to sit anywhere near there, sitting near the end, his back against cold stone, the morning light shining over the horizon. The clouds are a light rose hue, dawn’s reaching fingers touching the sky and the world reacting with clouds that caught the color of the world and shone down on undeserving people.

He sighed, the kind of sigh you save for rainy days because it’s like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together. His hair is mussed and he knows that is so very early that it’s ridiculous and he knew that she wouldn’t be here for hours, maybe, but he has nothing better to do. No one seems to trust him, and they shouldn’t, because he changed sides whenever he felt like it and he was such a backstabbing bastard.

But he still sat, on the cold bench, slowly warming it with his own unique body heat and letting the day wash over him, slowly, like a seashell on the beach that has holes in it but it’s still beautiful and complete in it’s own way, but you can never really fix the missing pieces, you can just set it on your dresser and make sure it looks very nice.

Katara, the waterbender, arrives at eleven.

“How long have you been waiting?” she asks, face unemotional from so much war. Innocence long gone, her naïve looks gone and her eyes now almost-empty, she is different from the girl that he fought in the North Pole not so long ago. She is hardened, a shell, because she has little left. She does not tell him that she received news her father’s ship was lost at sea. He does not ask why she is taciturn, compared to her usual self.

“Not long,” he says, and she nods, and that’s that.

“You must kill your sister.” It is blunt; it is out in the open. It is just so rude of her to say that, because she has no business in his family matters. Anyone else could kill his sister, anyone else in the whole world, but of course, he has to kill his sister, never anyone else, and it’s just so wrong. Because it’s true. And he replies, breaking a little inside, because he told himself that this wouldn’t happen, that he wouldn’t become his father.

And they talk more.

And she starts to walk away, finally, when it is nearing dark. He is hungry, she is hungry, but for something more. For comfort, for the sake of needing. His hand darts out and grabs her wrist roughly, harsh and uncaring, and he turns her around. They are standing face-to-face and both of them are a bit lost. It takes only a moment for him to crush his mouth against hers but she doesn’t stop, she doesn’t say no. They are too young for this, for everything, but they can’t stop.

When they break apart for a fleeting moment, he talks, because he must explain, because he cannot silence the past and it hurts so much. “I need to mourn,” he says and she nods in agreement, eyes wild.

She says, “Me too.” And they spoke no more.

She didn’t ask what he was mourning, he didn’t ask what she was mourning, and nothing was offered. But when he woke up in the morning, she was gone, and it was raining.

* * *

The next time he saw his sister, it was nearly five months later. Their plan was in effect and they had the upper hand so far, and he could see out of the corner of his eyes as the Avatar left, sending him a jolly smile that he hadn’t seen in forever and Sokka nods gravely before disappearing into the fray and Katara, lovely Katara, with her concern and worry, looks at him and she says nothing but he knows. If only there was more time.

He can see her leave to go into the battle, where children shouldn’t fight but they are anyways, and he wants to follow her but he can’t. Because he has a solo mission to take care of. Zuko walks straight through the middle of the battle, and nothing comes into his way. There is smoke in the air, again, but he can breathe peacefully because it is almost second nature and it painstakingly, slowly and almost tentatively, reminds him of home.

Doors opened as he pushed them wide, and the hinges creaked as the last large set of doors slammed open, but he could barely hear it over the anxious buzzing in his mind. The two large thrones that had been constructed in the middle of the room were broken, shoved aside, and he can see a wounded Azula in the back of the room, and an angry Mai and guilty Ty Lee in the rubble. His eyes widened as he realized that her friends had betrayed Azula also, and unknowingly, a small smile formed on his face.

He walks up to his sister, and looks down at her, at her round face and perfectly slanted eyes, at her hands that could harness lightning, but all the muscles that allowed her any real movement at all were either cut and bleeding or rendered unusable. As he met eyes with the two girls, he reached inside his mind to the part where home was hidden and Uncle-voice called out but he didn’t listen and suddenly, just suddenly, he could remember these girls as something other than the puppets that Azula had made them, but they were just like him, and they really didn’t have a choice.

Mai met his eyes, and she did not blush, and he wonders if she too has changed with death in the air and she nods at him curtly, and he squints and swears he can see more. Ty Lee doesn’t nod like her solemn companion, but she is not jubilant and she doesn’t jump to give him a hug, and Zuko knows that she is aware of the literal and not so literal blood on her hands. She bows to him, hands in the perfect triangle formation, and he feels an odd form of respect for the two girls.

As quick as the blink of an eye, they are gone, out of the door and into the hazy smoke and whatever awaits them inside of it. Zuko looks at his sister and he can tell that her wounds are very grave and that she will die soon if he doesn’t take her to help, and again, he feels respect for Azula’s former friends. They had effectively done his job for him.

Azula’s eyes had been closed until then and her breathing was heavily labored, but her eyes snapped open, and he remembered that once, with his mother, she had caught a butterfly and kept it cruelly in a jar. When the butterfly had died their mother had thought it was only an accident that Azula hadn’t put holes in the jar so it could live, but Zuko had known better – only he had truly known that Azula spent the whole day laughing in maniacal glee as the butterfly struggled to breathe in fresh oxygen, to live.

The next day their father had called on Azula to say he was disappointed in her. Zuko knew he wasn’t, Azula knew he wasn’t, but that it was the influence of their mother. His parents hadn’t been in love but her family was powerful and he listened to his wife when it suited him. When Azula had come out of the room, she wasn’t crying, but she had that look in her eyes, a look of utter loss and surrender with the façade of determination.

That was the exact same look in her eyes now. And she repeats the words that she had asked before, crazy, evil, and the bitch that she was and had always been.

“I don’t have to. You are dying anyways.” Simple.

He places his sword next to her, watching as her eyes slowly, after some time, flicker and shut. The blood on the floor is red, just like his, just like anyone’s, but in a way, it looks different, and Zuko knows that Azula’s blood is tainted, like her soul, and he watches his sister, as she slowly dies, slowly bleeds out, and remembers the plan.

* * *

“Tell me honestly,” she says, “What would you do to save your uncle?”

He watches, his golden eyes watch, and his straight-in-a-line mouth doesn’t answer.

Katara asks again. “What would you do to save your uncle?”

His face is emotionless and yet tired and weary at the same time. “Anything,” he answers. “Everything,” he whispers.

She presses his repaired again sword into his hands and leaves.

* * *

 

He finally leaves his sister, his sword still at her side. Pictures of her will always be in his mind, but this is the way he will recall her from this day on, but he was the only one who really had watched her as long as she had lived and had reveled in her as much as he, but before he leaves, he touches her blood, and rubs in between his forefinger and thumb and it’s just like his, and he thinks that they shared something in the end.

Her head was still leaning against the wall and her feet were touching the floor, and he had watched as she crumbled while her chest rose and fell for the last time. He stood up, uncomfortably dusted off his hands and wiped them on his black pants (the blood didn’t even show, not one bit), pushed his sword a little closer to her side, and left his sister in the same position he had seen the waterbender in not so long ago.

Zuko left his dead sister between the wall and the ground, and by the time he reached the outside world again, it was raining.


End file.
